EFFECT OF SELF-MONITORING OF HAPPINESS ON HAPPINESS
Using the web-based ‘Happiness Indicator’

Expert paper prepared in December 2020 for Saratov National Research State University, Russia Faculty of Psychology, Regional Center for Applied Psychology

by prof. dr. Ruut Veenhoven. Emeritus professor of social conditions for human happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands, Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization EHERO and North-West University, South Africa, Optentia Research Program


ABSTRACT
The Happiness Indicator is a self-help website as well as a scientific follow-up study. Participants record periodically how happy they feel and how they spend their time. Every year they report on major changes in their life.

Benefits for participants
The website offers its users instant feedback on their happiness. Participants can:

• Accurately assess how happy they feel most of the time
• Compare their happiness with similar people
• Track their happiness over time
• Chart how much they enjoy daily activities using the happiness diary
• Compare with similar people who use their time differently
  

Scientific uses
The website provides longitudinal data on a lot of people at low cost. The instrument can be used to assess:

• How people really spend their time
• How happy particular people feel during particular activities
• How interventions such as of trainings or organizational change work out on happiness, both in the short-run and on the long-term
• How life-choices, such as early retirement, work-out on the happiness of particular kinds of people.
• The Happiness Diary allows within-person comparisons and as such provides a better view on causal effects than current cross-sectional studies.